bonecollector777
Active Member
- Messages
- 460
Finally got the chance to take a nice tom. While I have had the chance to see a lot of cats in the tree this was my first one I have gotten the chance to kill. 130lbs and 7'0" from nose to tip of tail.
As for the story. .We cut his track along a road that was parallel with a huge canyon. The track was really hot so the dogs didn't have a hard time getting on it. After about a mile chase the cat went into the canyon and rather than tree in the bottom he went up the other side! So we crawled back out and the cat ran along the edge of the canyon for about half a mile and then dropped back into the canyon. Then he ran about another half mile along the bottom and treed in those big pines behind me in the picture. His tracks in the snow weren't that big so we were thinking it was going to be a female so we weren't planning on killing it. But when we got to the tree it turned out to be a good sized tom. Bad thing was the only gun we were carrying was a 30.06. So that's what I ended up shooting him with. Thankfully it didn't blow a hole out the back side when I shot it. Once he was out of the tree we had about a 2-2 1/2 mile hike back to the truck from the bottom of the canyon. I attempted to carry him and went about a hundred yards up the side of the canyon and realized it wasn't going to happen. We checked the GPS and saw a road cutting through the canyon about 2 miles down so we walked back to the truck, got a four wheeler, blazed a trail through the bottom and picked him up! Then took him to the taxidermist. I'm thinking about maybe getting him mounted someway with my big mule deer I killed this year. Still not sure.
As for the story. .We cut his track along a road that was parallel with a huge canyon. The track was really hot so the dogs didn't have a hard time getting on it. After about a mile chase the cat went into the canyon and rather than tree in the bottom he went up the other side! So we crawled back out and the cat ran along the edge of the canyon for about half a mile and then dropped back into the canyon. Then he ran about another half mile along the bottom and treed in those big pines behind me in the picture. His tracks in the snow weren't that big so we were thinking it was going to be a female so we weren't planning on killing it. But when we got to the tree it turned out to be a good sized tom. Bad thing was the only gun we were carrying was a 30.06. So that's what I ended up shooting him with. Thankfully it didn't blow a hole out the back side when I shot it. Once he was out of the tree we had about a 2-2 1/2 mile hike back to the truck from the bottom of the canyon. I attempted to carry him and went about a hundred yards up the side of the canyon and realized it wasn't going to happen. We checked the GPS and saw a road cutting through the canyon about 2 miles down so we walked back to the truck, got a four wheeler, blazed a trail through the bottom and picked him up! Then took him to the taxidermist. I'm thinking about maybe getting him mounted someway with my big mule deer I killed this year. Still not sure.
.....Nice cat.... Way to get creative on the recovery... Terry
